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C^?3 




T? 



COLLEGES ESSENTIAL TO THE CHURCH OF GOD. 



PLAIN LETTERS 



ADDRESSED TO A PARISHIONER- 



IN BEHALF OF THE 



Bcdctg for tl)e |]romotlon of (HoUcigiate aulr Sljeological 
€^u:atiou at tljc tUcst. 



BY 

JOHN TODD, D. D. 



N E W - Y O R K : 
'printed by LEAVITT, trow &, COMPANY, 

33 ANN-STREET. 

1848. 



Z.C 3^3 



CONTENTS 



LETTER I. 

These Letters written to a plain man, and why. A new charity in our 
Churches. Unarranged and common objections to it. Object of these 
Letters. The moral destinies of the world rest on two Institutions. 
The place occupied by the ministry. Its character. When and why 
Colleges first instituted. The great plan of the Puritans. Why the 
ministry cannot educate itself. Whence do ministers come ? Remark- 
able town on the mountains. Our missionaries — whence do they 
come ? Ministers must be poor men. Story of a poor widow. How 
must a Christian ministry be provided ?.....„ 



LETTER II. 

The great and new order originating with the Puritans. Foundation of 
the New England character. What the leaven and< what the life- 
blood of the land. The West — what we mean by it. What makes 
it? Why so important? A contest approaching. The questions 
involved. Fears at the East. Spasmodic efforts. A dangerous mis- 
take. What peculiarity of the West demanding an able ministry. 
Efforts and astonishing apparatus of the Catholics. A great question 
to be solved. How answered ? The philosophy of the Puritan system. 



LETTER III. 

What necessary to carry out the philosophy of the Puritans. Colleges. 
Experiments in this country and in the world. The end and aim of 
our Colleges. Objection to Colleges — that we might raise up the min- 
istry by private teaching. Three reasons why we cannot. Why not 
have a Joint Stock Company? Answered. Who should control our 
Colleges. Their peculiar character in this country. Power of edu- 
cation. In whose hands it should be. Objection — that we educate 
Lawyers and Physicians. Answered. Illustrations from Yale Col- 
lege. The philosophy of our churches. Revivals in Colleges. Two 
remarkable facts 13 



LETTER IV. 

The objection, that we are called upon to educate the sons of the rich 
stated and answered. The gain to the church on this plan. Who 
shall educate the rich ? For whom Colleges are chiefly and mainly 
designed. Philosophy of the plan. The sons of the rich cannot be 
educated on any other plan. Story of the wood-sawyer's son. Re- 
ciprocal advantages of bringing the rich and the poor young man 
together to be educated. The objection turned into an argument. 
Why we call upon Christians of moderate means to aid in this work, 
rather than to rely on the rich. What needed besides pecuniary 
means? 18 



LETTER V. 

The objection — that the West ought to raise up her own Institutions. 
The philosophy of founding a College. We have pecuHar advantages 
at the East. Situation of the western population. Remarkable fact in 
relation to the Colleges of New England in their infancy — Harvard, 
Yale, and Dartmouth. The ability of the West — why not available. 
Remarkable fact relative to the Western Reserve. Objection — that 
they might send their sons to the East for education. Answer. Illus- 
trated by early history of New England. Illustration drawn from our 
Common School system. Questions higher than mere dollars and 
cents involved. Value of Colleges compared with Theological Semina- 
ries. Objection-*-that the funds are liable to be perverted. A great 
fact. Risks incident to all efforts of the Church of Christ. . . 23 



LESSON VL 

Objection — that there is so much of brick, and morlar, and machinery, 
that to rear up a College is not charity. Answered. The philosophy 
of having College buildings. The economy of the plan. Remarkable 
history of a College sustained by the Church for twenty-five years. 
The peculiar blessing of God upon such a College. The true position 
of our local churches, and of the ministry in this land. The West to 
decide the destiny of this nation. What must aiid will form the cha- 
racter of the West 1 How a plain farmer looks at this subject. The 
benefactions of farmers. The question which weighs upon the churches 
of New England. Our confidence in the plan which tlus Society is 
carrying out 28 



COLLEGES 

ESSENTIAL TO THE CHURCH OF GOD. 



LETTER I. 



Pittsfield. Mass., 1847. 

My Dear Sir, — When I address these letters to you, 
I feel that I am speaking to a friend, to a plain man, who 
works and tiiinks for himself, and who represents a large 
class whom I wish to reach. I am wishing to speak to 
you, in these pages, just as I would talk at your own plea- 
sant fireside. Your highest honor, as is mine, and that 
which we esteem our highest glory, is that we hope we 
love the cause of Jesus Christ. 

You have noticed that among the objects for which we 
are now called upon in our congregation to contribute, 
Colleges come in, associated with Theological Seminaries ; 
and we are told that these are so essential for the West, 
that a Society is organized expressly for this object, and 
that we are annually to be called upon to give of our 
substance to these Institutions. And though you have 
made no complaint to me, yet I have thought that you and 
others looked as if you would say, " My Pastor, I don't quite 
understand this. To sustain Colleges at the West, is to be 
a prodigious burden on the Church of God. It seems to 
be a roundabout way of doing good. It seems to be call- 
ing upon us to give our money to rear up piles of brick 
and mortar — to educate Lawyers and Doctors — to educate 
rich men's sons — to buy libraries and apparatus — to do that 
which belongs to worldly men and to the State to do ; and 



it seems to me that this is not doing for the cause of Christ, 
as when I give and pray for the Home Missionary or the 
Foreign Missionary cause. When we send out the word 
of God, or the Kving preacher, or the religious book, we 
know what we are doing. We are then laboring directly 
for the salvation of the world. But I cannot see how it 
is the same work to rear up a College ! It will be a fearful 
burden for the churches to sustain, and before you call upon 
them to do it, you must give them plain, common-sense 
reasons for it." 

Now, my friend, this is exactly what I wish to do ; I 
wish, in the course of my remarks, to meet these and all 
other objections which are raised ; and I hope to do it in 
such a way as will commend itself to the good sense and 
the conscience of yourself, and of all who are like you — 
of whom I wish there were many more than there are. 

The two great institutions on which the moral destinies 
of this fallen world rest, are the Family and the Church. 
Both were appointed by God, and both were to be perpet- 
ual. The responsibilities of the former he has laid upon 
parents ; for the oversight and instruction of the latter, he 
has appointed ministers of religion. In all ages, these 
ministers have had their qualifications specified and their 
duties marked out. These religious teachers, according to 
the Bible, have two great ends at which they are to aim ; 
viz., to lead the devotions of God's people, and they must 
therefore be pious men ; and to teach the revelation of 
God, to make known his character, and to defend his truth. 
A worldly man cannot do the former, and ignorance cannot 
teach and enlighten. To combine these two ends, and 
have them proportionate, has ever been the aim of the 
ministers of Christ, who inherit the spirit of the Pilgrims. 
All know that ignorance cannot instruct ; stupidity cannot 
enlighten. Narrow views cannot expand the minds of 
others. 

Under the dispensation of Moses, though a whole tribe 
of Israel was set apart to be teachers and ministers of re- 



ligion, yet it was found that they needed more education, 
and therefore, under Samuel, Colleges, or " Schools of the 
Prophets," as they are called, were established by inspired 
men : and from that day to this, it has been found neces- 
sary for the Church of God to make special efforts to 
educate her ministers. In accordance with this, the Puri- 
tans were most anxious and careful in educating their 
religious teachers. If the object were merely to have an 
order of men who could offer a bullock on the altar, or 
who could burn incense, or even read a prayer-book and 
the Scriptures publicly, it would be different. But the 
ministers of the New Testament must be men fully up to 
their age — they must be leaders — they must be expounders 
and defenders of God's truth, and they must be competent 
to instruct and enlighten the most gifted minds on the stage 
of life with them. The first ministers of the New Testa- 
ment were instructed by Christ himself for three years, and 
then they had the supernatural influences of the Holy 
Spirit, through life, to bring the teachings of Christ back 
to their memory. How long would the congregations in 
this region be held together by ministers whose minds were 
undisciplined, and who were uninformed men ? 

Perhaps you would concede all this, and yet ask. Why 
may not the ministry educate itself? Why must the 
Church take the responsibility and the expense of educa- 
ting her ministry ? A plain question. And I reply, Because 
God, in his wisdom, has so ordered it, that his ministers, 
as a general thing, are from the poor. They have been 
born, have lived, and have died poor men. This is so well 
understood, that you do not think of looking to the great 
commercial city, nor to the houses of the rich, to furnish 
them ; and when you do find such, they are exceptions to 
the general rule. The leader of Israel was the son of a 
poor slave. The father of the Reformation was the son 
of a miner. The Apostles were poor men. A little moun- 
tain town in Massachusetts, where the soil is the hardest, 
and the climate severe, and the luxuries few, has raised up 



and sent out between twenty and thirty ministers of the 
Gospel, in as many years. I need not go into the philoso- 
phy of the thing. As a fact, you know that not many rich 
are either willing or prepared to preach the Gospel. The 
ministers at our altars must be men who can endure hard- 
ness as good soldiers. They must be men of self-denial. 
They must be able to sympathize with the poor ; and, lest 
they be lifted up and forsake the ministry when the storm 
comes, they must eat from the altar, and live on what their 
people give them. Most of those who are laboring among 
the heathen, and who are the living ministry at home, are 
men of this description. And a wise provision it is. How 
could a Redeemer sympathize with a poor man, and be 
touched with his infirmities, had he never himself been laid 
in a manger, or been too poor to give his disciples any 
thing better than the raw grain in the field, or to have a 
place where to lay his head ? We want our ministers to 
be poor men, and to come from that class in the commu- 
nity. They, probably, always will come from this class. 
And if a poor man gives that which no money can buy — 
if he gives his son to the Lord — can the Church do less 
than qualify him for the work to which he is dedicated ? 
Has not Hannah done her part when she gives her only 
jewel to the temple of the Lord ? Some years ago, there 
was a poor widow on one of our hill-sides, who lived in a 
humble dwelling. Just at sunset, in our cold winters, she 
might be seen out, cutting her own wood, and carrying it 
in for the night. Honored woman ! She had lent her son 
to the Lord, and he was now in College, and she was living 
alone, and denying herself, that she might aid him to fit 
himself for the ministry ! He has since filled a most im- 
portant post, and been, probably, second to very few in our 
day, in usefulness. What do you say? Should not the 
Church provide for the education of such men ? The most 
useful and eminent ministers whom you and I know were 
poor, and are poor men. They must be educated by the 
Church, or we must rely on the rich to fur lish o?t minis- 



ters, wnich they never will do ; — or we must have igno- 
rance and stupidity set to watch, defend, and build up the 
Jerusalem of God. 



LETTER II. 



My Dear Sir, — There has been so much said about the 
magnitude of the interests involved in the destiny of this 
country, that I fear we shall become sick of the repetition 
long before we have an adequate conception of the subject. 
Our Puritan ancestors sowed here the seed of a new order 
of things. They founded an empire, with a government so 
free and easy, that no good citizen feels the burden ; and 
so comprehensive, that as fast as a new State grows up, its 
form of government is all provided, and the child has only 
to put on the working-dress of manhood. We have not to 
devise a government, or to make any new experiments in 
that department. The empire founded by them, to be in- 
definite in extent,' is to be based on religion and intelligence. 
Thus, from the very first, the Church of God and the 
Schools of Learning have been the fiz'st things to be pro- 
vided for, — the most prominent things to be seen in the 
centre of all New England villages. Protestant Christianity, 
intelligence, and civil freedom were thus yoked together ; 
and together is their destiny bound up. The Puritan drew 
his spirit from the Word of God, and quenched his thirst 
with the waters that flow from under the altar of God. 

The spirit of the Pilgrims has created New England. 
It has planted our churches, reared our Schools and Col- 
leges, created our intelligence, made labor honorable, drawn 
us into the habit of untiring industry, and given us sweet 
homes, if not wealth. This same spirit of the Puritans is 
the life-blood of the land. The descendants of the Pu- 
ritans, now numbering, probably, not less than five millions, 



10 

are scattered through all the land, and carrying with them 
the leaven which our fathers brought across the waters 
in the Mayflower. You can see this leaven at work wher- 
ever you go ; and the spirit and the principles which have 
made Massachusetts, must, and with God's blessing, will, per- 
vade the land. Protestant Christianity can do its work in 
no way but by filling the community with light. 

But that which now immediately engrosses the atten- 
tion of good people, is the West — the West. By the West, 
I now mean — not a continent extending to the Pacific, but 
I mean the territory which is watered by the Mississippi 
and his branches. In this territory the whole population 
of Europe might be set down, and there would be room 
enough and food enough. It now contains nearly ten mil- 
lions. But the most remote man in Europe can reach it 
in one or two months, at farthest. Into it, Europe is 
pouring a flood — noblemen and beggars, the enlightened 
and the outcast, the good citizen and the scape-gallows. 
No class is to be found in the old world which is not re- 
presented here. Errorists, of every name and description^ 
centre here. The good people of the land have felt that 
they must be content to see this the battle-field on which 
the principles upon which this nation was founded, and 
their antagonist principles, popeiy and despotism, are to have 
their contest. A contest it will be, and such as the world 
has never yet seen. The questions involved are, whether 
over this land there shall be free churches, free schools, free 
institutions, light and intelligence, or, whether civil liberty 
shall be destroyed, our churches be turned into cloisters 
and nunneries, and the mutterings of monks and the count- 
ing of beads take the place of enlightened teaching, and 
intelligent prayer and praise : whether it shall be a nation, 
a century hence, living by its virtue and intelligence and 
religion, or a congregated mass of millions, fed by super- 
stition, groaning under spiritual and civil despotism, and 
rending the heavens with their groans of bondage. 

These questions, at times, press upon the good people at 



II 

the East with great power, and they feel that they must do 
something for the West. These seasons of anxiety have 
produced spasmodic efforts. At one time we rise up to fill 
the valley of the great Father of Waters with Sabbath 
schools. At another time, we undertake to enlighten and 
Christianize it with tracts and the books of the colporteur. 
These are good things in their places, and I bid them God- 
speed. But they can no more create the West, and make 
it what it must be in oi'der to save the nation and our hopes, 
than a few crumbs, thrown from a rich man's table, can 
give bone and muscle to an army of strong working men. 
We must have means more commensurate with the work 
to be done. We are in danger of feeling that the enemy 
is upon us, and we must go out at once and fight him ; 
more anxious to do battle, than to possess the best weapons 
of warfare. But I beg you, my friend, to recollect, that 
our main dependence in this warfare must not be on Sab- 
bath schools, nor on religious tracts and books. These are 
the Hght arms of the Church — very convenient and often 
very powerful. We make no objection to them in their 
places ; but it is idle to think that with these we can lay 
the foundations of society at the West, and make them 
stable. Why, there are in this valley, nearly a million of per- 
sons who cannot read or write. What will books do for 
these ? Their children cannot read ; and this number is 
every day increasing. Talk of books ! Who does not 
know, that the people of the West are not generally a 
reading people ? They are intelligent, but illiterate. They 
will not allow a. minister to read his sermon, and prefer 
the crudities of an extempore discourse, to any that can 
be read to them. What they want is living men, — the 
living voice of the living preacher. Him they will hear. 
You may send them the writings of Baxter, if you please, 
it is well : but still, it is the living Baxter that they need — 
the living epistle of Christ, whose voice and sympathies 
they can feel. 

The Roman Catholics understand this. They do not 



12 

expect to gain the West, and, of consequence, the country, 
by any spasmodic efforts. They are building forts and fill- 
ing them with munitions of war, and are manning them 
with great care. In other words, they are building great 
Colleges and Schools all over the valley, — not to educate 
the Catholics — they never do that ; but that they may educate 
the children of the Protestant community, and thus under- 
mine all our hopes. What expense have they spared to 
found these institutions? They number in the United 
States 24 literary institutions for young men, of which 13 
are colleges "regularly organized;" 21 ecclesiastical insti- 
tutions ; 66 female academies ; 834 priests on the ground, 
including 2 archbishops, 23 bishops, and 1 vicar apostolic ; 
besides nunneries and mummery-houses, I know not how 
many. Their great field is the West. In rearing these 
colleges and schools, they are calculating for a long war- 
fare, and for the moulding of society as they desire. 

Now can you doubt, for a moment, what instrumen- 
tality we need for the same ground ? What we want is 
men, living heralds of the everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ 
— men who are born of God, and educated thoroughly for 
the day in which they live. And these we cannot raise up 
except by having Colleges and Schools of the very first 
order. Suppose you were to-day set down at the West, in 
the midst of a great heterogeneous population, and it was 
laid upon you to solve the problem how you could do most 
good for that community, now, and for ages to come? 
What would you do ? Would you not look back and see 
how the first foundations of your beloved New England 
were laid ? If you say, " yes," — then I can tell you what 
you would do, and how you would solve the difficult ques- 
tion. You would say, "First, plant the local Church, with 
an educated, able pastor ; next, rear the School-house near 
the church, free to all, where the children could be re- 
ligiously instructed. Next, you would say, rear the College, 
where we may raise up sons of the prophets, who shall 
each become the centre of light, intelligence and religion 



13 

(and which can be multiplied only as Colleges have pre- 
pared able pastors) — as our pastor is in his sphere. Let 
these local churches be multiplied, and these free schools 
go with them, till the land is occupied ; and let the Colleges 
and Theological Seminaries be raised up as fast as they are 
needed to educate a Christian ministry !" This would be 
your plan, if you were as wise a man as I think you are. 
And if you could not sustain this pastor, you would beg the 
Home Missionary Society to aid you ; and if you could not 
find a teacher for your school, you would beg one to come 
from the East to aid you ; and if you could not sustain your 
College, or your Theological School, you would ask the 
enlightened and the great-hearted to aid you. Your notes 
of appeal would be loud, and long, and earnest. You could 
not meet the responsibilities which God in his providence 
laid upon you by any thing short of this. And this is just 
what we wish to do. The local Church is the nucleus of 
all our system. Then the Free School, to educate the 
whole community ; and the College and Theological School, 
to raise up wise and able teachers of religion. When we 
make our appeal in behalf of the Western Colleges, it is to 
carry out the plan so wisely laid by our fathers ; and which 
has worked so admirably, for more than two hundred years, 
in New England. 



LETTER in. 



My Dear Sir, — It is settled, I presume, in your mind, 
as well as in mine, that to carry out the plan devised by 
our fathers, our local churches must be so many centres of 
light, safety, and salvation. These churches must each have 
a pastor or overseer ; and these men must be thoroughly 
educated. They must be teachers in theology, and every 
church must be a kind of theological school. Without 



14 

thorough discipline of mind, they cannot take the lead in in- 
fluence. The amount of discipline, hard thinking, and mental 
furniture which each teacher must have, is far greater than 
any one can imagine who has not occupied his station. 
He must "prove all things," and then " hold fast that which 
is good." I feel that I cannot too earnestly impress the 
thought, that we must have able pastors, and they must be 
thoroughly furnished. To this every good man will yield 
his assent. The only question on which we can differ is. 
Are Colleges absolutely necessary to do this, a,nd are they 
the best means we can use ? 

I reply that Colleges, or something answering to them, 
have been deemed necessary by the wisest minds the 
Church has had, ever since the days of Samuel. We have 
tried the system in this country for more than two hundred 
years, and it is found to work admirably. It is, moreover, 
the experience of the world in all ages. All our Colleges 
at the North were founded by good men for the purpose of 
raising up an able ministry. We have looked to this point 
almost solely in planting them. We endow them, so that 
the teaching, the use of books and apparatus, may be within 
the use of all. 

" But why could not an able ministry be trained up by 
private teaching?" 

I will tell you in a word: For three plain reasons. 1. 
Because no private teacher could have the books and ap- 
paratus sufficient to instruct all the branches, or if he did, 
his outlay must be so great that his charges must be enor- 
mously heavy. 2. No one man is or can be qualified to teach 
all branches. There must be a division in teaching, and it 
is as much as one man can do, to teach one thing well. If 
it takes one hundred and twenty persons to make and per- 
fect a common needle, it is nonsense to talk of one man's 
being able to educate ministers. 3. You know that when 
you and I sit down and talk over a subject, we learn much 
faster than when we sit down alone and think about it. 
Mind excites and stimulates mind, and creates thought; 



15 

and the excitement of having young men together in classes, 
and their reciprocal influence upon each other, cannot be 
dispensed with. 

Some have thought that we might have joint-stock com- 
panies formed, which might educate cheaper and more 
efficiently, without all the expense of endowing Colleges. 
Let us look at this a moment. Suppose a company were 
formed in this county to take the place of Williams Col- 
lege. Let it attempt to educate 100 students (that College 
has nearly twice the number). Suppose the capital to be 
$50,000 only. To get men to subscribe, and to make the 
stock equal to money, you must have about ten per cent, 
interest. You could not induce them to take stock at a 
lower rate. The interest, then, to the stockholders is $5000. 
Suppose the teachers to receive $4000. You must now 
charge each student $90 annually for tuition, before 
you make any charge for books, board, fuel, lights, clothing, 
&c., &c. Do you not see at once, that this would pre- 
clude the possibility of our being able to raise up a ministry 
adequate to the wants of the Church? But suppose we 
could endure the expense, where is the security that such a 
company would not place unsanctified men in the chair of 
instruction, and thus give the devil the opportunity which 
he desires, by which to raise up his own leaders for the 
army of Christ ? And this brings me to say, that our ob- 
ject being to raise up a faithful and able ministry, we may 
not have our Colleges controlled by the State, nor by world- 
ly men. It is impossible that a State can plan and act as 
we do, having the great aim of her Colleges to train up a 
ministry for Jesus Christ. These Colleges must he in the 
hands of the Church of God. They must be reared and 
sustained by her prayers and contributions, guided by her 
wisdom, and instructed by her best sons. They ever have 
been, and they are now, and they are to be, schools of the 
prophets. Our Churches have never refused to give up 
their most valued pastors to be instructors in these Colleges. 
They have also had peculiar joy in seeing the work of the 



16 

Lord revived in them, from time to time. Besides, you weit 
know that the power of education is a prodigious power. 
Let a cross-grained, bull-headed fellow attempt to instruct 
one of our district schools for a single winter, and what 
mischief does he do ! He makes impressions and creates 
prejudices in the school, which a lifetime cannot efface. 
Education is the grand pioneer in the onward progress of 
the "sacramental host" of God in its inroads upon the 
kingdom of Satan. The Church must have this power. 
God has given it to her, and most calamitous for this world 
will that day be, when she relinquishes this power. All 
our instructions to our missionaries go on the principle that 
education is a vast power, which they are to be prompt to 
seize upon. 

But perhaps you will say, " Why must our Churches be 
called upon to endow and raise up Colleges in which to 
educate lawyers and physicians ?" " I hope," said a good 
man, as he handed his dollar for this cause, " I hope that 
this will not go to educate lawyers." The feeling of the 
good man was a natural one. Let us look at it in its true 
light. There can be no doubt but we must have lawyers 
and physicians ; and they must be educated by somebody. 
Which is wisdom — to have them brought under the power 
of an education strictly Christian, which will exert a silent 
influence upon them through life — imbued with the philo- 
sophy of the Church — trained by her intellectual principles, 
breathing in her atmosphere, or, to have them cast off to 
be educated under the influence of infidelity, or even of 
teachers who live for this world alone ? What an incon- 
ceivable difference would it n^ake in this nation, if all who 
have studied law or medicine, or become teachers, had 
been educated in schools not controlled by the piety of the 
Church of God ? Who can tell how many silken cords 
have bound these spirits, and made them the friends of good 
order, of law, the supporters of the Sabbath and of good 
things, and which cords were fastened upon them while 
receiving their education ? At Yale College, i387, accord- 



17 

ing to the last triennial catalogue (1844), have been edu- 
cated. Of these, 1594 have been ministers of the Gospel. 
Multitudes of those who did not become ministers, have 
been exceedingly useful — pillars in the church and nation. 
It is impossible to tell how very different would the influence 
of the same men have been, had they been trained in a 
College not reared and endowed for the purpose of educat- 
ing an able ministry. But I have no hesitation in saying, 
that the influence of this Christian education upon these 
men is ample compensation for all the Church has expended 
on that College, even if not a single minister had been 
educated. Are we not acting on the principle in all our 
plans as Christians, that we are to influence and carry with 
us as many as we possibly can ? Suppose no one except 
the people of God, in this place, kept the Sabbath, or went 
up to public worship. Would it not be the duty of the 
Church to have her house of worship, and her })astor and 
teacher ? And if she can have that great mass of mind in 
the place. — constituting the great sphere of his usefulness 
— brought into the house of God, and under the truth of 
God with her, is it not better ? Is not one object in having 
the pulpit well manned, and all this Sabbath apparatus pro- 
vided, that the world may thus be brought under the influ- 
ence of the truth? Would not a Church forget herself 
greatly, were she alone to make provision for the spiritual 
education of her own children ? Now this is precisely the 
principle on which she acts when she rears a College to 
educate her ministers, and yet makes provisions so ample, 
that all the mind which is educated in the land, may be 
trained under the most decided Christian influence. Your 
own plans at home answer the objection. The education 
of lawyers and physicians and teachers in our Colleges, is 
incidental to the great object which we have in view in 
establishing and endowing them ; but it is so much clear 
gain to the cause of truth ; and I feel confident that the 
moment you look at the subject in this light, you will re- 
joice that while the Church is doing so much good directly 

2 



18 

oy educating her ministers, she can do so much indirectly 
for the good of the human family. I might add, that the 
frequency of revivals in our Colleges — for which a day of 
fasting and prayer is annually observed — the number con- 
verted in College, and the number who are converted after 
leaving College, and who thus greatly increase the number 
of faithful ministers, more than strengthens my argument. 
About one-fourth of those who have entered the ministry 
from one of our best New England Colleges for the last 
twenty-five years, are known to have been converted while 
in College ; and doubtless, the records of other Colleges 
would show a similar result ; and take the community as a 
whole, there is nothing like the same number of conversions 
that there is among these young men in College. 



LETTER IV. 



My Dear Sir, — Perhaps it has occurred to your mind 
— I know it has to the minds of others — that, in rearing 
and sustaining a College, the Church has to educate rich 
men's sons, and that, in point of fact, the rich receive very 
much aid in this way, inasmuch as we bring the expenses 
down very low. Do I state the objection clearly ? Let 
me answer it as clearly. 

Suppose it be so, — that we do educate rich men's sons 
at Colleges which are reared up to educate a Christian 
ministry. Ought not these to be educated, and well edu- 
cated, and to be brought under the influence of Christian 
training ? If you were to build a dam over the beautiful 
river that flows at your door, at a great expense, for the 
purpose of irrigating your fields, and thus you fertilize and 
beautify your own lands, would you object, if, in doing so, 
you also fertilized the lands of your rich neighbor, — and 
more especially if he gave part of his increase to the cause 



19 



of religion ? It costs you nothing to do it, and you increase 
the products of the earth in so doing. To carry out the 
figure a Httle further, suppose, unless you did overflow his 
lands, also, they would be barren, and dry, and unsightly, 
but by your labor they become fruitful and beautiful- 
then, what do you say ? But allow me to use the figure 
once more. Suppose that the rich man sees you building 
your dam, and he says, " You are doing a good work. Your 
lands will give your children more bread ; and since you 
have begun it, I will also put in and be at a part of the ex- 
pense." And he actually furnishes more than his share of 
the expense, and you thus secure a better dam than you 
could build without his aid. Have you now any objection 
to watering his fields? This is precisely what we are 
doing. The Church of God plants a College to rear up an 
able ministry, and rich men know that it is a public benefit, 
and they know it is the only place where they can educate 
their own sons, and they cheerfully put in their share, and 
more than pay for what we do (money only considered) for 
the education of their sons. So that, in point of money, 
we lose nothing by the operation, but gain much, as we 
secure better endowed institutions. 

But take another view of the subject. Is it a matter 
of no interest to_ the Church, whether the sons of the rich 
spend their youth in ostentatious folly, in fashionable 
amusements, the nine-pin alley, the dance, the chase, the 
horse-race, or whether they spend their youth in the pur- 
suit of knowledge, under pious teachers, where night and 
morning they hear the word of God read, and hear prayer 
offered ? Are the men who disgrace their country, to say 
nothing of themselves, on the floor of Congress, by intoxi- 
cation, and profaneness, and brawls, — are tJiese the men 
who were chastened in youth in any of our New England 
Colleges ? Is it no gain to the cause of religion to have 
these young men educated with the sons of the Church 
and by the Church ? 

But I repeat it — our Colleges are chiefly and mainly 



20 

institutions designed for the poor and those in moderate 
circumstances, and not for the rich. What College in all 
New England lives by its tuition fees ? What one, whose 
needful expenses are not more than double what are charged 
to the students ? By these endowments, indigence itself 
can drink at the richest fountains of knowledge, when, 
without these endowments, none but the rich could be edu- 
cated. Our Colleges are the best possible provision for the 
rich, but are emphatically designed for the poor. 

And here let me say another thing. We have no insti- 
tutions in our land more truly republican than our Colleges. 
The rich and the poor meet here ; but nowhere does the 
distinction between wealth and poverty vanish so soon, and 
appear so insignificant. I can well remember the poor 
youth who rang the bell, and waited on tables, and occupied 
the recitation-room, because of his poverty, and yet in a 
class of nearly a hundi-ed, there was no one more respected, 
honored, or courted by the rich. Is there any other place 
more republican than this ? Very soon is the lesson learned 
at College, that wealth has little power compared with 
knowledge. Our most important posts, in New England 
certainly, where we lack neither intelligence nor wealth, 
are occupied by those who were poor when starting in 
life. 

It may seem a paradox — but it is nevertheless true, that 
it would be impossible to educate the sons of the rich, except 
in Colleges that are charitable institutions. To secure the 
education of the wealthy, you must bring the means down 
within the reach of the poor. Suppose our Colleges were 
not endowed, and none could enjoy their benefits except 
the rich, what efforts would the rich then make to be 
thoroughly educated ? They would feel that their wealth 
gave them a standing, and as they could now monopolize 
both wealth and education, what would they do ? What, 
but the hotbed of extravagance, of folly, and of sin, could 
a College be, filled with young men too indolent for bodily 
or mental labor? But let the rich man's son compete 



21 

with the poor youth who is aspiring and struggUng to 
quahfy himself to do good, and he will find that he must 
study, or he loses all standing. Mind, and not matter, is 
the standard in College, and take away poor men's sons, 
and leave only the rich together, and you can never edu- 
cate them. Is not this plain? I was lately at a College 
commencement, where I was peculiarly struck with the 
appearance of a young man who came on the stage to 
speak. He had one of the brightest eyes and most illumi- 
nated countenance ever seen, and just enough of the foreign 
accent to show that he was a foreigner by birth. He de- 
livered his oration, and so thrilling was his voice, and so 
beautiful the thoughts, that every heart was touched. Great 
statesmen and high judges were present, and their hearts 
were bowed, and they shed tears with the rest. Who was 
the noble youth? I was told that his father is a poor 
man — an Irish woodsawyer in a neighboring city ! After 
the exercises were over, I saw his poor mother walking 
arm in arm with her son, and I said to myself. These are 
nature's nobility ! These are the fruits of our system of 
Colleges. Blessed system ! where the rich is not degraded 
by learning the true standard of excellence, nor by associ- 
ating with and respecting those whom he would be in dan- 
ger of scorning, were he to meet them on any other ground ! 

I ought here to add, emphatically, that there are recip- 
rocal advantages in thus bringing the sons of the rich and 
poor together, and that the youth in moderate circumstan- 
ces derives much benefit from associating with those who 
have moved in a different sphere, and, in some respects, 
have had advantages superior to his. His views are en- 
larged, while his manners are softened and refined. 

One thing more on the objection that our Colleges edu- 
cate rich men's sons. Suppose these sons could be educated 
by themselves, or suppose the rich did not aid us to endow 
our Colleges, though their sons are educated at them, still, 
there is another thing to be taken into the account. I will 
suppose that in educating fifty young men for the ministry, 



22 

you also educate fifty young men, sons of the rich, who dc 
not enter the ministry : still you have directed the bias, the 
warmth, the enthusiasm of youth towards the cross of 
Christ; you have set before them the true standard of excel- 
lence ; you have taught them the great object of life ; and 
you have prepared the way for them to use their wealth for 
the high and noble object of doing good. You have lifted 
that wealth, otherwise probably lost, up on the platform of 
Christian benevolence, and opened new fountains which 
will flow for years to come. And thus the Church of God 
receives back, wdth amazing interest, all that she expends 
to educate the rich. 

You will excuse me, my good friend, for having dwelt 
so long on this point. I wish to show you not only that 
the fact that we do educate the rich is no objection to our 
system of Collegiate Institutions, but it is a strong argument 
in their favor — to my mind, an unanswerable one. 

What makes the meadow lying back of your dwelling 
so beautiful and so fertile ? Is it not because the sweet 
"river of hills" which God has created by collecting a 
thousand little mountain-streams into it, brings down fer- 
tility and freshness as it winds its way to the ocean ? And 
if, on its way, it throws blessings into the dwellings of a 
thousand poor men, are you not willing that here and there 
a rich man also should receive its benefits ? Would you 
wish to open a fountain on one of the mountain-sides which 
should send out healing waters long after you are dead, and 
not have these waters free to all ? So God feels in causing 
the rills to bubble up around us. And while our Colleges 
were founded to educate such men as Payson, and Gordon 
Hall, we rejoice that, incidentally, they do a vast amount 
of unseen good, and pour blessings upon others, without 
turning aside from the great end of their establishment. 
Bear it in mind, that they are,, and ever have been, char- 
itable institutions, whose great aim is to raise up an able 
ministry : the rest is incidental. So good men feel it to be, 
when once they understand it. The greatest donation that 



23 

Yale ever received, was from a plain, hard-working farmer : 
and a plain farmer of Massachusetts was among the earliest 
and heaviest benefactors to Lane Seminary, to Marietta 
College, to Wabash College, to Amherst, and to the The- 
ological Seminary at Gilmanton. And if you inquire, Why 
do we not call on the rich and endow these Colleges en- 
tirely by obtaining large sums, and not thus call on men of 
moderate means to throw in their small donations ? we an- 
swer, for the same reason that God collects the great river 
from a thousand little rills. We want our Colleges to lie 
warm on the heart of the Church, to live in her prayers and 
sympathies ; and for the same reasons that our great mis- 
sionary funds are collected from ten thousands of praying 
people, does God send us to such men as you are, to aid in 
rearing the College. You will not love and pray for insti- 
tutions in which you have no stock invested.* And we 
want your prayers no less, certainly, than we want your 
contributions. 



LETTER V. 

My Dear Sir, — It is the impression of some, that the 
West can and ought raise up and maintain her own Col- 
leges. Do we not do so at the East ; and is not her soil 
vastly more fertile than ours ? Do we no read of wheat 
fields there two miles square each, yielding twenty-five 
bushels to every acre ? And have we not such accounts 
of the fertility of their soil that we are almost tempted to 
leave our cold climate and worn-out soil for the West? 

* When New England was poor, and they were but few in number, there 
was a spirit to encourage learning. The infant institution [Harvard] was a 
favorite. Connecticut and Plymouth, and the towns in the East, often contri- 
buted little offerings to pijpmote its success. The gift of the rent of a ferry was 
a proof of the care of the state ; and once, at least, every family in each of the 
colonies gave to the College at Cambridge twelve pence, or a peck of corn, or 
its value in unadulterated wampum-peag ; while the magistrates and wealthier 
men were profuse in their liberality. — Bancroft's History of the United States 
Vol. I. p. 459. 



24 

Why, then, do they not lean upon their own population, and 
do the work themselves ? 

I will tell you. Colleges grow out of the wants of the 
Church. She rears them to raise up her ministry. When 
New England was first settled, it was by a company of 
saints, "a royal priesthood, a peculiar people." All their 
strength went together for any good object. Hence, though 
they were poor, they could rear their schools, by concen- 
trating all their strength. But at the West, there are all 
kinds of people and views, aims and feelings, the greater 
part go there because they are poor, and wish to better their 
condition ; they have their wild lands to subdue and pay 
for ; their houses, school-houses, court-houses, and churches 
to build, they have their roads and bridges to make, and 
the number who feel the need of a College, who can under- 
stand its value to the cause of religion, and at the same 
time have the power to do much, is comparatively small. 
If the population were all like the Puritans of New England, ' 
the case would be different. But it is not ; and few of us 
are aware how much sickness, and self-denial, and suffering 
most have to pass through before they have a home that is 
their own. The number of pious people to the whole mass 
is small, and probably they are not all of the most intel- 
ligent and enlightened order. And before we complain 
that they come East to ask our aid to build and sustain 
their Colleges, let us recollect one important fact. It is just 
ivhat we did when we were young, feeble, and in a forming 
state. With all her enlightened piety and forecast, New 
England never could have reared her wonderful schools 
when she did, had she not looked East for aid. Harvard 
College, and Yale College, and Dartmouth, all received 
their names from the great-hearted men who lived or were 
reared in England. Their early funds and their aid, at the 
time most needed, came from Europe. * I must remind you 
here too, that when Lord Dartmouth was laying a plan by 
which to raise the Indians, he planted a College at Hanover, 
that, like a powerful engine on the top of a hill, it might 



25 

draw up from the valley that which needed raising. The 
Indians have passed away but the engine still remains, a 
monument of the wisdom of its founder, and a great bless- 
ing to the world. If Esau despised the blessing, Jacob has 
inherited it. I do believe it would have been impossible 
for these institutions to have risen up as they did, and lohen 
they did, and to have become what they have, without 
help from abroad. Let us remember this. And if you still 
insist upon it that at the West they have a rich soil, I reply, 
it is no richer than ours was when the plough was first put 
in it. No part of the world ever yielded more abundantly 
than the virgin soil of New England,* and yet, though they 
had all this, and though all felt alike and thought alike, and 
though they were very wise and good men, yet they need- 
ed aid from abroad, and received it ! Is it any wonder 
that the West cannot at present command the means to 
lay the foundation of such institutions as her circumstances 
require ? There is no doubt but there is wealth enough at 
the West ; but bear in mind, that the model of a College is 
an institution whose chief design is to train up an able Pro- 
testant ministry, and the number of those who can heartily 
enter into this design, is so small, that the wealth which 
they can command is absolutely inadequate to this great 
design. f 

You are aware also, I presume, that some think that 
this is not the best way to accomplish the end at which we 



* See Mr Gould's address before the Berkshire Agricultural Society, 1846. 

tit appears from recent investigations, that of the 210 townships on the 
Western Reserve — which has been called " the New England of the West " — 
55 townships, containing a population of 51, 171, have not any Congregational 
or Presbyterian church organized within their limits, and are to a great extent 
without church organizations of any kind. According to the most liberal es- 
timate, not more than one-sixth of the population on the Reserve is under the 
influence of these denominations. The number of churches connected with 
New School Presbyteries and Independent is 136 — averaging about 70 mem 
hers each. Their reliable ministerial force, consisting of Pastors, Stated Sup- 
plies, and Licentiates, amounts to 80. Of these, 50 during the last year re- 
ceived aid either from the American Home Missionary Society or the Connec- 
ticut Missionary Society, leaving only 30 as the number sustained wholly by 
their parishes. There are, also, 9 churches connected with Old School Pres- 
byteries. — N. E. Puritan, 1846 — 7. 



26 

aim. They would have the West send their sons on to 
the East to be educated. " Here," say they, " we have the 
institutions all prepared. We have the libraries, the ap- 
paratus, the teachers, and we can give them a much better 
education here, than they can receive at home." We re- 
ply to this, that experience leads to safe conclusions. 
When we were young here, poor, and our institutions in 
their infancy, our fathers could have received a better edu- 
cation in old Cambridge or Oxford across the waters than 
they could here. A few did go there for education, and 
came back impressed with the conviction that they must 
raise these institutions at home as fast as possible, and as 
high also. But the great mass of those educated for the 
ministry could not go. They must be educated here, or 
not at all. Now we have here at the East fine mill- 
streams, a great water-power, and good mill-wrights and 
valuable mill-stones. They lack all these, measurably, at 
the West. Would it be wise, therefore, for them to send 
all their wheat to us to be ground ? You say, " No ; they 
must have their own mills, and must grind their own 
wheat." I say so too. And so they must have their own 
Schools, and Colleges, and Institutions. Their wants are to be 
so great, that they cannot send abroad to educate their sons. 
Just turn the tables. I am a poor man. I can just sup- 
port my family. God has given me an only son, whom I 
consecrated to him from the moment of his existence. I 
wish to educate that boy, in the hope, that he may serve 
Christ in his Church. By straining every nerve, it is pos- 
sible I may do it. But suppose we had no College in all 
New England, and I had to send him over the mountains 
to the West, in order to get at a College. Could I do it ? 
Could any number of our poor youth, who are now trained 
up to be very useful men, who had else never had the oppor- 
tunity to do any thing great in the cause of Christ ? 

If you still press me, and say, " Why not — why not send 
them here ?" I reply, that it takes a great many little things 
to make a great one. If I am to send my son to the West, 



t7 

to be educated, he is either to travel home every vacation, 
or stay there, — either alternative is expensive. If he goes 
there I can clothe him and provide for him only at arm's 
length, and at great disadvantage. Would it be possible for 
one of our sons to be educated there, where three are now 
at home ? And is it not equally true, if you ask the same 
question about the West ? But even if they could send 
their sons to the East, and we could educate them at a less 
expense than to endow Colleges there, there are other con- 
siderations that rise immeasurably above dollars and cents. 
I shall stop only to say, that the exigencies of every great 
community require that the education of that community 
be within itself A College is the heart, and what could 
you do if the heart were taken from the centre of the body 
and placed in your hand, or in any other remote part of the 
body ? The Church needs a native ministry, when this is 
possible, and we cannot lay plans to raise up a ministry for 
ten or twenty millions of people, by having them all sent 
hundreds and thousands of miles to find a College. Which 
is wise, to build one free school in the centre of each town, 
or to have our district schools scattered all over the town ? 
Would the same oil which is now distributed through the 
streets and lanes of a great city, do as much good if con- 
centrated into two or three great lights ? I need not 
answer these questions. And I hesitate not to say, that if 
you would fill the community with light — ^which is the life 
of Protestant Christianity — you must have Colleges distri- 
buted through the land. 

I do not know but I may be called heterodox for the 
opinion which I am about to pen ; but so deep is my con- 
viction of the importance of our Colleges, that if the ques- 
tion were whether they or our Theological Schools should 
go down, I should have no hesitation in saying, " Stand by 
the Colleges." The place of our Theological Seminaries 
can be supplied ; but the place of our Colleges, nothing can 
supply. The Church once did without the former, but the 
universal experience of the Church in all ages, proves that 



28 

she cannot do without the latter. Perhaps the former may 
still be considered as an experiment ; but there is nothing 
experimental about the latter. They are the wholesale 
warehouses, from which intelligence and thought are dis- 
tributed all over the land and the earth. 

A word here on the objection to founding Colleges, that 
the funds are liable to be perverted, and the institutions be- 
come engines of mischief I admit the liability, and most 
woful are the results when this is the case. But let us re- 
joice that Christ can keep that which is committed to his 
hands. According to the statement of the President of one 
of our Colleges, among one hundred Colleges which have 
been established in our country, there has been but one 
solitary College which has been perverted from the design 
of its founders. This is a remarkable fact. We must re- 
member, that when the Church deals in the things of this 
world, she must run risks which business men run. A mis- 
sionary ship needs insuring as well as any other. We must 
expect occasionally to meet with losses. If a steam-boiler 
bursts, its very power to speed us on our way becomes 
fearful to destroy. Banks, factories, joint-stock companies, 
and all human enterprises which require capital, sometimes 
fail and draw ruin in their track. Shall we, therefore, shut 
up our banks, stop our machinery, furl the sails of our ships, 
and bury our property in the earth, because we sometimes 
meet with losses in using it? Civilization cannot exist 
without a certain degree of risk, nor can Christianity make 
progress without risk. 



LETTEE VI. 

My Dear Sir, — There is a feeling with some that there 
is so much about a College that looks like machinery, that 
it cannot be a charitable institution. " There are the build- 
ings, the piles of brick and mortar ! Is it charity to build 
those huge buildings ? Is it charity to give my money to 



29 

purchase apparatus, and a library of books that have nothing 
to do with reUgion ? Do these seem Hke aiding the cause 
of reUgion ?" 

As to machinery — we do and can do nothing without 
it. We must use the lead of the mines, the tanneries, the 
press, and the steam-engine, with which to print and circulate 
the Bible. Formerly they used mules to drive the printing 
press at the Tract House. Is it charity to give my money to 
buy mules, to buy leather and paper and boxes when I 
would circulate the Bible ? Yes, it is charity. And if we 
could not send our missionaries abroad except by owning 
missionary ships, we should build them and buy them for 
this purpose. Whatever machinery is necessary in order 
to do the work of preaching Christ, we must have. The 
plates and the cups at the communion table, are necessary 
to the object contemplated. So are libraries, and apparatus, 
and lecture-rooms, and recitation-aooms, necessary in order 
to train up an efficient ministry. 

But is not too much money spent on College buildings ? 
Perhaps so. But let me tell you how it is. In rearing a 
College, we first find the location best adapted to the wants 
of the community. We locate and wish to have it per- 
manent in one place. It must not be travelling about like 
an itinerant lecturer. We must rear buildings, then, suffi- 
cient for a chapel, or place of daily prayers. We must 
have large rooms for the recitations. We must have suit- 
able rooms for the library, for the apparatus, and for the 
students to hold their own meetings in. These are essen- 
tial to a College — to every permanent institution. Then, 
as to erecting buildings in which the students shall room 
and study, that is a matter of expediency to be judged of in 
^ach particular case. My own opinion is, that in most 
cases, it is economy to erect them, — and for these reasons : 
1. The students must room and study somewhere. If the 
College does not furnish rooms, private individuals must ; 
then the students must pay such a price as is demanded, 
and they must be more or less scattered through a town or 
village. The cost to the student will be much greater in 



30 

this case. 2. By rearing your rooms for the students, at a 
very moderate rent, you have an income that makes your 
outlay a safe investment. For example, if you have 
$20,000, out of the interest of which you are to support a 
Professor, and if, instead of putting this at interest, you in- 
vest it in buildings, and rent the rooms for a sum fully 
equal to the interest, and at the same time you give the 
students much cheaper and better accommodations than 
they could otherwise have, are you not wise to do so ? It 
is only a question of investment of funds by which you 
support the institution. You see, then, that the brick and 
the mortar of a College are essential to it, just as the box 
is essential in which to send off Bibles, just as the ship is 
to send off missionaries, and just as human bodies are, to 
contain the spirits that live and act for Jesus Christ. 

I believe I have now, my good friend, laid the subject 
before you, and considered the difficulties and objections to 
this system of charity so fully, that you, and all our good 
people, will cheerfully give this a place in your prayers, and 
sympathies, and contributions. The people of God have 
made a recent experiment in rearing up a College in this 
commonwealth, wholly by their own efforts. It was plant- 
ed and grew up in prayer. It has rested on the Church 
alone for aid. What have been the results ? It is about a 
quarter of a century old. In that time, it has been blessed 
with eight different seasons of the outpourings of the Spirit 
of God, which may be called general. More than 400, or 
over one half of all who have graduated, have entered the 
ministry. Over 100 are now Pastors in Massachusetts. 
Others have gone out and are preaching the Gospel in 
seventeen different states and territories, probably a ma- 
jority of them sent out by the Home Missionary Society : 
while about thirty have taken their lives in their hands and 
have gone to preach Christ to the heathen. And what will 
eternity disclose as the results of all this ? Why, if this 
College were now to sink and never more to be heard of, 
the good already accomplished would more than a thou- 
sand fold compensate for all that the Church has done for 



31 

it. " Them that honor me, I will honor," saith the Lord. 
All the Colleges under the patronage of the Society have 
been repeatedly favored with revivals of religion, and we 
have no doubt that they will be the means directly of ad- 
vancing the kingdom of God, in proportion as they are 
sustained by the prayers and money of his people. Instead 
therefore of feeling it a burden, to have the cause of the 
Western Colleges thrown upon good people there, and good 
people at the East, let us rejoice that it is so. Surely we 
do not need the archangel to thrust down his trumpet and 
blow the approbation of God into our ears ; and we have 
every thing but that. The great end at which we aim, is 
to give the West an able and efficient ministry, and for this 
we cannot rely upon the State. Keep in mind that the 
local churches are the centres of light and truth in this 
country; and in the philosophy of the organization of this 
nation every thing turns, and depends upon their being 
guided by a rightly educated ministry. To this great object, 
we must turn our attention with earnestness. We cannot do 
the work without Colleges. The experience of all ages 
decides this point. The country which has become the 
asylum of all nations, the good and the bad, must have its 
character decided by the West. And the West will have 
its character formed and decided by the institutions of learn- 
ing planted there. We must come up to this work, and 
we must lose no time in doing it. 

When the Society for Collegiate and Theological Edu- 
cation at the West was established, I felt doubtful as to its 
necessity, and of the favor which it would find with our 
churches. The more I have reflected upon the subject, the 
more convinced I have become, that it was, and is, and will 
be, necessary for the present. We shall require our friends 
at the West to do all in their power. But we must aid 
them till they can provide for themselves in their own 
fields ; for, the Colleges must be mainly charitable institu- 
tions, at which the sons of the Church, poor though they 
may be, may be trained up for the Redeemer's service. 
The expenses to the student must be kept low for this pur- 



020 775 966 1 



32 



pose. A few years since, a plain farmer left his hard-earned 
property to the care of a few friends to distribute. We 
gave $1000 to each of several Colleges, and directed that 
the money be laid out for a library. In consequence of 
these books, the now able President of Marietta College 
has compiled a Lexicon, which is an honor to him and to 
our country. He has dedicated it to the memory of the 
good man who gave the money. What a beautiful monu- 
ment has God thus erected to the memory of Samuel Stone ! 
For the last few years, the question. How can we sup- 
ply the West with an efficient and educated ministry ? has 
weighed heavily upon those who have stood on the walls, 
and have heard the cry, " Watchman, what of the night ?" 
We think we can now see how it can be done ; and we 
feel confident, that when the candid and good men of our 
churches have examined the subject, they will see as we 
do ; that they will hail this Society as a chosen vessel of 
mercy, and be ready to bid it God-speed. With all our 
imperfections, we have and can have no selfish motives, in 
urging our beloved people to take this cause near their 
hearts. We shall raise up ministers and churches and 
schools, which we shall never see. We shall become bene- 
factors to those who can never know us. But we raise up 
a divinely-appointed and the most efficient instrumentality 
the world ever saw ; and we put a machinery in motion 
that will operate long after we are dead and forgotten. We 
enter the field on which the enemy of all righteousness is 
building his strong forts, and we prepare, in the panoply of 
light and truth and love, to combat his strength, and to fight 
with weapons which God has appointed. If truth shall be 
overcome in the conilict, we shall not five to see its fall ; but 
shall be rewarded for our efforts. If it shall prevail, as prevail 
I have no doubt it will, then will the river into which we 
send our rills, for ever flow, and make glad the city of our 
God. 



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